


Trust but verify

by ferggirl



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-19 23:37:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1488343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferggirl/pseuds/ferggirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: Jemma and Triplett are at the Triskelion and not the Hub during the events of the movie, because an undisclosed location just doesn’t have the same ambiance as DC in flames.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust but verify

**Author's Note:**

> Written before Turn, Turn, Turn aired, just exploring the tension and possibilities.

The Triskelion is coming apart from within. Steve Rogers — Captain America — makes an announcement over the intercom that their very leadership has been infiltrated by HYDRA. 

That’s a scary story in a history book. Jemma never paid that much attention in history. They never wanted to waste time talking about science, just politics. 

But Agent Triplett stiffens beside her and she knows enough about the scary stories to be aware that their situation is dire. 

He leans into her space, casually flinging an arm across her shoulder. “Extra sidearm in my belt. Left side. Take it now.”

"Agent Triplett…" She wants to explain that she failed her field test, that she can hardly hit the side of a barn door, never mind the little paper men they’d asked her to demolish. But his arm tightens and he nudges her over.

“ _Now,_  Simmons.” 

The doors slide open and multiple sets of footsteps enter with no greeting. 

She takes the gun. It’s heavy and cold and for a moment she freezes, forgetting the steps. Then she hears Skye laugh in her head — “ _and I just keep hitting the release on the damn magazine”_  — and she remembers. 

He hasn’t moved yet, providing cover while she settles the gun into her right hand. “Good. Take what you can. We’re leaving.”

Then he turns, smiling, and steps in front of her to greet their silent company. 

"Gentlemen, what seems to be the problem?"

Jemma downloads the data on Skye’s blood, and is copying anything else she can from the SHIELD system when a bullet splits her flash drive and fries the CPU. 

"No!" She turns, pistol raised, just in time to watch Tripp take the final man down. 

"Time to go."

"I can’t. The data, it’s got to be on backup systems, or… or something."

"Simmons, I know of plenty of things worth dying for. This ain’t one." He holds out his hand, and she takes it. She knows a better agent would question him, would make sure she knows where his loyalties lie. But he’s just saved her life three times over. "Stay close."

She does.

******

It’s chaos. No one is following procedure. Guns are drawn and most people are just running for the nearest exit at full speed. 

They pass by a bank of windows and see a helicarrier rising over the Potomac. 

Jemma skids to a halt. 

"Oh my god," she whispers, only realizing that she’s stopped when Tripp tugs to get her moving again. "Look at the size of those weapons."

"Not our problem."

"Wait, Agent Triplett. Wait!" She flattens herself against a wall and does her best to point her gun at the floor as an entire research lab team pushes past her. "We need to find out where the team — Fitz said they’re coming here. We need to send them away."

"So we’ll do that," he slides an arm around her and muscles her along. "Outside. And hell, call me Tripp, would you?"

******

Tripp manages to get them clear before the helicarriers fall from the sky, shearing off a portion of the building and raining deadly debris on anyone who hasn’t made it across the bridge.

What she doesn’t know terrifies her. Who else got out of the building, for example.

They haven’t even begun sorting through the rubble. Jemma is grimly aware that there will be friends, classmates, colleagues and even a few ex-boyfriends found before this is over. 

She wonders how many of them stayed out of noble reasons, and how many were fighting to keep those bringers of death aloft. It’s a bit of a relief that she’ll never know, not for most of them. She keeps walking in the opposite direction.

They follow the river, while most of the others head into the city. He takes her gun back and slides it into its holster. Her SHIELD-issued cell is still secure in her lab coat’s pocket. His is a crushed pile of plastic and circuitry. After another mile, they sit on a bench and she pulls it out, stares at it and then at the smoke curling over the wreckage in the distance. 

"I should be helping," she says. "There are people — I have medical training. So do you. We should help."

Tripp looks at her with understanding. “We will. Once it’s safe. You gonna call that plane?”

"What if it’s bugged? Or HYDRA has some data collection bank? Or…" Her hand is shaking and she sets the phone down on the bench. "What if someone on our team…?"

"Now look here," he leans in, nudging her shoulder with his own. "I’m as shook up as you are, excepting my stoic specialist poker face. But do you really believe the people you’ve been working with for months are out to destroy the world?"

She gestures helplessly at the carnage they’ve just walked away from. ”Everyone has secrets, Agent- I mean, Tripp.”

He runs a tired hand over his face and gives her a significant look. “Not everyone. Call them.”

She’s still hesitating when the phone jumps in her hand. Fitz. 

Surely she can trust Fitz.

It rings twice more and then stills. She slides it back into her pocket. “I need a minute. I just need to think.”

******

She ignores three more calls. Two from Fitz and a third from Skye. 

It strikes her as ominous that Coulson has not tried to reach her. Tripp suggests she’s being paranoid.

"Steve Rogers just destroyed SHIELD’s headquarters because our organization is so compromised it tried to commit large-scale murder," she says. "I think I’m allowed a little paranoia."

They’re walking again. He knows a Day’s Inn two miles away that will work as well as any safe house for waiting this out. 

She’s flagging, her feet sore and her head throbbing. His hand on her back is a gentle push forward, a steadying presence in a world gone sideways.

"So why are you paranoid about your friends and not…" He stops speaking abruptly and looks at her. She just sighs.

"Not you? I suppose it’s because you’ve had quite a lot of chances to kill me today, if you’d wanted to." Her smile feels wan, but he grins back and bumps shoulders with her. "Besides, I looked into your eyes during the announcement. You’re no traitor."

"Ain’t that the truth." He laughs to himself, and tugs her along. "Almost there, killer."

******

Their room has wifi, low level stuff that’s easily hackable and completely unsecure. 

Jemma hops onto her phone while Tripp takes a shower in the dim little bathroom. She starts at news sites, and realizes that this crisis has been building for days, ever since Director Fury’s shooting. 

The list of those dead and missing is long, but even longer is the register of files dumped out onto the internet by SHIELD in its death throes. 

She dives into the tangled nest of data, using her knowledge of SHIELD’s organizational patterns and Fitz’s lessons on efficient retrieval to pinpoint the documents she most wants to see. 

Skye’s bloodwork. The team’s personnel files. She searches out Tripp’s and the other senior agents’ files as well. The she sets up another dropbox folder just for scientific data, and starts an upload to grab as much as she can.

When Tripp emerges with a towel around his waist, she’s curled up on the bed, intent. 

"You got a charger for that thing?"

"Of course, it’s in my — " She stutters to a halt. Her purse was sitting on a shelf in that lab, if the lab was still standing. "Shit. No."

"Better watch the battery, then. Shower’s all yours, sunshine."

Jemma takes the phone into the bathroom with her. It’s not that she doesn’t trust him — today, he’s about the only person she does trust. She just prefers to think Ward and May have taught her something about being an agent. 

There’s more grit in her hair than she realized, and the hot water leaves her sleepy and calm. There’s another message on the phone when she checks it after drying her hair, and she bites her lip thoughtfully as she sits back down on the queen-sized bed.

Tripp is watching the news. The fall of SHIELD is the only thing on anyone’s mind. He hits mute and turns to her.

"You should call them."

It’s too late to turn the plane around. They’ve gone where they’re going by this point. So why does she continue to hesitate?

"I’m afraid." 

Tripp’s expression doesn’t change. He just waits, watches her gather her thoughts and adjust to the admission she wasn’t planning to make.

"What if I call and Skye answers the phone and Fitz has… and it’s Fitz? Or it’s Ward. Or May. I just… the longer I don’t call them, the safer they seem to me, Tripp." She catches her breath on a gasp of emotion and his hand covers hers in sympathy. "I know that none of them could betray us. I  _know_  it. And I’m utterly terrified that I’m wrong.”

On screen, the face of Agent Garrett, Tripp’s SO and Ward’s former SO, flashes on screen with a red “WANTED” blazoned across his picture. They both stare, silent. 

Then he says, “That’s the third time they’ve shown him. A little bit of my soul dies every time he smiles up there. But you’ve got to know.”

He hands her the phone. She squeezes his hand tightly as she dials Fitz.

Whatever happens, she knows there’s one person on her side.


End file.
